Feb 8, 2023 5 min read

The Mon Valley is mourning the loss of a police officer who previously worked for two regional departments in Washington County before leaving for a full-time job in McKeesport, where he was fatally shot while on patrol Monday afternoon.

Officer Sean Sluganski, 32, died and his partner was seriously wounded after they were both shot while trying to help a man apparently suffering from mental health issues.

Sluganski worked for both the Charleroi Regional and Southwest Regional police departments for several years in the late 2010s before going to McKeesport three years ago. Both of his former police chiefs remembered him Tuesday as a great police officer, but an even better person.

“He absolutely lit up the room. The kid always had a big smile on his face and was kind to people,” said District Judge Eric Porter, who served as Charleroi Regional’s police chief until getting elected magistrate in 2019. “We never wanted Sean to leave in the first place. He was a great police officer, a great person.”

Porter was vacationing in Cancun, Mexico, when he learned of Sluganski’s death after receiving hundreds of text messages from friends and police officers informing him about what had happened.

“It seems like a damn nightmare,” Porter said during a phone interview Tuesday. “I’m still in shock. I think everyone is devastated.”

Johnathan Jermia Morris, 31, of McKeesport, is charged with homicide and multiple other felonies in connection with Sluganski’s killing, according to online court records. He was hospitalized after being wounded in a shootout with another McKeesport police officer.

While Porter said the situation was “hard to put into words,” he chose to remember Sluganski as someone who tried to make a difference in the communities where he patrolled. Porter said he made an impact every day he walked into the Charleroi Regional Police Department and while visiting the various communities on his beat.

“He was an everyday community policeman. Everyone in the municipalities and towns and other departments liked him,” Porter said of the officer known by his colleagues as Sluggo. “You knew you were going to have a good shift. He always had your back.”

That’s what Lori Corso thought when she first heard the news Monday night. Corso, who owns Milly’s Hope Chest on Fallowfield Avenue in Charleroi directly across from the police department, printed homemade signs memorializing Sluganski and placed them in her shop windows Tuesday morning.

“It was shocking,” Corso said when she heard the news and saw photos of him circulating on social media. “It really hurt. It breaks my heart.”

She remembered him as a police officer who made a personal connection with business owners and residents in the borough.

“Sean was always waving, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ Always had a smile,” Corso said.

While Sluganski grew up in Baldwin, his ties to the Mon Valley ran deep and went beyond his law enforcement background. He was studying at PennWest California and taking classes as recently as last fall, although he was not enrolled this spring.

“Sean was majoring in criminal justice as he sought to better serve the community,” PennWest spokesperson Wendy Mackall said of his course schedule in the fall. “We extend our deepest condolences to Sean’s family, friends, fellow officers who serve the McKeesport area, and his colleagues in law enforcement.”

That passion for law enforcement and helping others is what John Hartman will remember most about Sluganski, who previously worked for Southwest Regional Police Department that covers communities in the Mon Valley in Washington and Fayette counties.

“He enjoyed helping people,” said Hartman, who supervised Sluganski as Southwest Regional’s police chief before retiring recently. “He was the type of person who would like to solve an issue and solve it an amiable way.”

Sluganski mainly worked out of the Union Township substation, where he always left an impression on his fellow officers by raising their spirits each day. That friendly personality meant even more to the people whom Sluganski interacted with on the beat, Hartman said.

“He projected that out into the community,” Hartman said. “When people dealt with him, they realized the type of person he was. A kind and caring person. I can only think of positive things.”

Hartman said the outpouring of support following Sluganski’s death shows the impact he made during his career in law enforcement and as a member of the Mon Valley community.

“I don’t know anyone who didn’t like him,” Hartman said. “He was the best guy. This is tragic.”

A GoFundMe website launched Tuesday to help Sluganski’s family already raised its stated goal of $75,000 just hours after being created. The fundraising page said Sluganski leaves behind a fiancée and 1-year-old daughter.